Project Management

Pumex Computing’s project management structure allows us to place the most skilled development team and project manager with the programming expertise your software requires.  Whether your development team is working here or abroad; you will always have a direct point of contact in the US to help resolve any issues, facilitate change processes, and keep you up to date on the project’s progress.

In addition to having dedicated project managers and technical leads, each customer will have a back office portal that they can use to stay updated on the development life cycle.  The back office allows our customers to track their project from inception to final delivery and communicate effectively with their Project Manager and technical leads.

Our Project Management and Development Process speak for themselves. While we are flexible in how we pursue the development of your software, whether we utilize a Waterfall Approach or a more Agile Development method.  We find the best approach often lies in between the two ideas.  Each approach has its pros and cons to the development process and Pumex Computing finds that taking concepts from both philosophies allows us to create superior software.   Our Development Lifecycle is as follows:

1. Project Kick Off
   • Purpose: Understand project goals, discuss initial project scope, timelines, and final objectives.
   • Deliverables: Proposal Delivery, Project High level Scope, and delivery timetable based on scope
2. Project Start
   • Purpose: Create detailed project management and implementation plan for successful allocation of internal resources.
   • Deliverables: Project Management Plan & Roles/Responsibility Matrix
3. Design Phase
   • Purpose: Creating the visual interface through which users will interact with the software
   • Deliverables: Initial design documentation, GUI overlay, Design Review Checklist, Client Design Approval Process
4. Implementation Phase
   • Purpose: Coding the actual software per the features and functionality outlined in the scope and any additional scope objectives added later in the process.
   • Deliverables: Source Code and Review, Test Report.
5. Periodic Release
   • Purpose: Progress review and customer functionality testing
   • Deliverables: Project Manager will review development progress up to that point and present system functionality demo every 2-4 weeks. Depending on project requirements and schedule.
6. Test Phase
   • Purpose: Initial software bug testing done by an independent QA team. This ensures that the product is fully tested and verified before initial release
   • Deliverables: Initial Bug test report and QA Clearance for Alpha Release
7. Alpha Release
   • Purpose: First customer ready release to test functionality with GUI look and feel. Customer feedback is then taken and utilized to enhance the software for the Beta Release
   • Deliverables: Initial Software release with bug test report, QA Clearance for Beta Release
8. Beta Release
   • Purpose: Second customer ready release with customer feedback taken into account. Final customer testing and input.
   • Deliverables: Customer software release with Bug Test Report, QA Clearance for Final Release
9. Final Release/Ongoing Support
   • Purpose: Final project deployment and integration with Customer IT systems. Implementation of ongoing software support plan.
   • Deliverables: Final Product and Customer Acceptance. Final Bug Resolution Report

Pumex believes the most efficient method is to combine the best of both the waterfall development method and agile development process, where the final deliverable has gone through multiple client reviews and three phases of product release to the client. This allows Pumex the ability to retain flexibility in the functionality, look & feel of the final product, while maintaining strict controls on timetables and product deliverables.  The customer is able to provide a high level of feedback and input into the development process and final result, while controlling overall costs and time to market development cycles.

While the above method is the preferred process for Pumex developed projects.  This model may vary greatly in the event an external or internal team augmentation model is utilized.  In those situations, moving to either extreme of the Waterfall Development Process or Agile Development Process may make more sense for the project.